Voter registration and gerrymandering

By focusing on the high-profile boundary changes, your headline (Boundary changes may push 10 million voters off register, 16 September) fails to properly convey that it is the more technical government proposals in relation to voter registration that are more important here. What is key is the proposal to make it no longer compulsory to co-operate with electoral registration officers. This will have the impact of effectively disfranchising large proportions of the electorate, leading us steadily towards a more American situation where registration is left to the individual, and with potentially partisan consequences.

The 2007 Gould report into wasted ballots in the Scottish parliament elections highlighted the fact that voters were all too often "afterthoughts" in questions of electoral administration and that "all those with a role in organising future elections consider the voters' interests above all other considerations". The question must therefore be why the government, so keen on promoting democracy elsewhere, has felt such good advice worthy of neglect in this case.Dr Alistair ClarkLecturer in politics, University of Newcastle

• Anyone serving as a boundary commissioner for a previous constituency review – as I did – could foresee that the current review would fragment local government areas, leading to a messy pattern of seats. This is a consequence of the major reduction in MPs, together with the relaxation of the rules respecting local government boundaries.

Accordingly, the poor fit that has arisen between the newly proposed constituencies and local government and recognisable community areas is not gerrymandering, as some appear to allege. However, that would be a more justifiable allegation towards the reported white paper proposition to replace household registration by individual, voluntary registration.

This proposal has echoes of US practice, with notably low turnout at presidential elections and the bad experience in Florida in 2000. Furthermore, registration serves for both parliamentary and local elections; some electors may wish to vote in one but not the other. When a person chooses or inadvertently fails to register, that person should not thereafter be precluded from voting if their mind changes before a particular local or general election. Registration practice should not change as the white paper is reported to propose.Urlan WannopHelensburgh, Argyll and Bute

• The problem of non-registration of young electors appears likely to worsen under the move towards voluntary individual registration. The Youth Citizenship Commission established under the previous government recommended that electoral registration of 16- to 17-year-olds be carried out at their schools and colleges, perhaps as a useful addendum to citizenship classes. I have yet to hear any convincing arguments as to why this cannot take place.Professor Jon TongeChair, Youth Citizenship Commission, 2008-09

• Labour's opposition to the proposed boundary changes puts them firmly alongside the old Ulster Unionists in defence of blatant gerrymandering. In the 2005 election, the Labour party polled 65,000 less votes than the Conservatives in England, yet gained 92 more seats than them. This is a gross misrepresentation of the voters' wishes and an affront to democratic principles. Remember how we all sneered at George W Bush, the actual loser, after the 2000 US election. Labour's failure during 13 years in office to promote democratic reform has condemned them, and us, to many years of toothless opposition.Peter CunninghamBath

• Carlene Firmin (Society, 14 September) writes movingly about Edmonton. But under the Boundary Commission's proposals, it will no longer have an MP to speak for it. It will be split four ways, with one ward in Tottenham (the commission made no reference to this in its report) and three others forgotten in Chingford, across the river Lea, which has divided Essex and Middlesex for the past 1,000 years.Cllr Toby SimonLabour, Enfield